Eggplants, Tomatoes, and Sunrises

Almost exactly a year ago, I dropped my husband off at his new job and went straight down to the car repair shop.  During the next week or so, I took him to school in a rental car, and spent the day looking at rental ads (for houses, not other cars), trying to find a place to live.

One of the things I remember distinctly from those early-morning drives were the breathtaking sunrises I enjoyed out my rental car window.  

Since we get more rain this month than most other months of the year here, there are often dramatic cloud formations on the eastern horizon, and the light has a new show every morning.  I'm loving the chance to enjoy them again, this year from my back yard or my morning walk.

We've had quite a few more pollinators in our garden lately; however, I still pollinate the eggplant flowers every day, just to be sure.  We wouldn't want to miss out on any of our promised fruits if the pollinators happen to take a day off.  And as you know, we have several ways we love to eat eggplant (which don't include eggplant Parmesan!).

We've been eating Japanese White Eggs in relative abundance.  We've had one Rosa Bianca so far, with more blossoms on the way, and our first Aswad Eggplant flower bloomed today.


I can't say how nice it was to come home after summer breaks to a few established plants like these, especially in comparison to starting everything in the garden from scratch when we moved in last fall.

We were perhaps inordinately pleased with ourselves to have started our tomato seeds a full six weeks before we did last year.  Oh, how high our hopes for them have been climbing!  

This time, we've transplanted them up to three-inch pots to help them get a bit bigger and more prepared for life in the garden plot before putting them out permanently.  It won't be long now before they'll be ready to venture out into the wide world.

We've planted three plants each of four varieties:  Amish Paste, Bonny Best, Ingegnoli Gigante Liscio, and Big Yellow Zebra.  Our seeds are a couple of years old, and the last two varieties I don't see available through Baker Creek anymore.  Nonetheless, we'll grow them while our seeds last, and perhaps attempt to save some (even though they might cross pollinate a little in our small space).



(I'm not compensated at all for these links to seeds--just thought you might enjoy knowing which varieties we're growing right now.)